


Nobility

by abstractconcept



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Won, Bloodplay, Consent Issues, M/M, darkish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-08
Updated: 2006-05-08
Packaged: 2018-11-08 05:48:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11075307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abstractconcept/pseuds/abstractconcept
Summary: Voldemort has all but won, and Ron is given to Lucius Malfoy. It’s nothing like he was expecting.





	Nobility

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kennahijja (Hijja)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hijja/gifts).



> Loosely inspired by Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem Richard Cory.
> 
> DEDICATED to kennahijja, an exquisite author. I do hope you like my Ron, as he came out delightfully…well, ‘twisted,’ as cormallen put it. *g*

Malfoy Manor was every bit as imposing and chilly as its master. Ron could feel his heart thundering in his chest as he stepped out of the Floo, looking around the most majestic, haughtiest room he’d ever entered. He hadn’t seen the place from the outside—and doubted he ever would—but imagined that it was towering and elegant, a shining, gleaming hoary fortress, perched proudly on some rolling hill. Or else—or else it was more like the Malfoys were on the _inside_ —squat and crumbling, and choked with heavy vines.  
  
“This way,” Lucius Malfoy murmured and Ron, having no choice, followed silently, feet sinking deeply into the plush carpet with each step. The Death Eater seemed to lead him through a maze. Ron lost count of the posh rooms they passed. It was bewildering, and more than a little intimidating.   
  
_What luck he’ll probably just throw you into a little cell in the dungeons, and you’ll never have to see any of this again,_ a voice in Ron’s head suggested dryly.  
  
“You will stay here,” Lucius said impassively, stopping at a door. “When you’re not cleaning or what have you.”  
  
Ron stepped through the doorway, blinking in surprise. “But this is bigger than my room at home,” he blurted before he could catch himself. Blushing furiously, he glared at Malfoy, who was wearing his characteristic faint, distasteful sneer.   
  
“I’ve no doubt it’s more spacious than any room in your house. The Manor, unlike your _shack_ , was built for something grander. This is merely a servant’s room. You’re a servant. Do you comprehend?”  
  
Ron swallowed. “What will you...” To his embarrassment, his voice broke, and he tried again. “What will you do with me? Why am I here?”  
  
The man rounded on him, his pale eyes slightly darker with anger. “You were a gift from the Dark Lord. After all your _Order_ cost me—my house elf, my wife, my _son_ —he felt providing you as a replacement—albeit a meagre and inadequate one—was appropriate.”  
  
Ron shifted from one foot to the other. “What’s happened to the others?” he managed to whisper. He had to hear it out loud, just once. It had to be made real, or he’d never learn to live with it.   
  
Lucius arched an eyebrow. “Of the infamous trio of golden Gryffindors, we still haven’t caught that Mudblood friend of yours. You are here. Potter was given to Snape, for services rendered.” At the thought, the sneer flickered toward a genuine smile, but quickly reverted to its ghostly shadow once more. “The Order is scattered. They are leaderless. Many of them—that nasty gamekeeper, the old biddy from the school, that meddling Shacklebolt—are dead. Wipe them from your mind,” he advised. He turned to fully face Ron, leaning forward until their noses were an inch apart. “Now it is down to _you_ and _me_ , and you had best get used to it.”   
  
Ron’s stomach was clenched in knots. He tried to master his face, to push aside the loathing and rage he felt. “Fuck you,” he spat. He closed his eyes, expecting to be hit, or cursed, or _something_ , but when he finally dared to open them, the man’s face was impassive once more, and he swept out the door, shutting it firmly behind him.  
  
Ron walked over to the bed and sank down onto it, shaking slightly. So this was a world where Voldemort won, was it? He wasn’t giving up. Sure, he was wandless and at the mercy of Malfoy, but he was a fighter. And really—and _really_ , it wasn’t that bad. Not as bad as it probably was for Harry. And for the first time in his life, he had a bit of space, a bit of privacy. He tucked his knees under his chin and wrapped his arms around himself. He wasn’t giving up. He wasn’t.  
  


OoOoOoO

  
  
He’d tried the doors. He’d had a go at the windows. He’d even bashed at one with a candlestick, but it bounced off without leaving a scratch. He’d tried the Floo, but it didn’t take him anywhere—it just tumbled him about, head over feet, while a strange, heavy darkness enveloped him and the cold flames whipped round his face. Eventually he’d stumbled out again, back where he’d started. It left him sick, sore, with a tight anger in his chest.  
  
There was no way out. He’d be stuck in this place forever. He _hated_ Malfoy Manor. Oh, it was luxurious, tasteful and quiet, but it was so abysmally _empty_. For all its splendour and size, it felt more like a tomb than anything—like some damn mausoleum he’d been shut up in to await his death.   
  
Ron thought he was going mad.   
  
Months had passed, and Lucius neither looked at nor spoke to him. No one ever came to the Manor. When Lucius needed something, he left and got it—although he was becoming increasingly reclusive, and rarely did so anymore. The days and nights blurred together.  
  
It was so still and silent. Ron even talked to himself, sometimes, trying to bolster himself, to work himself up, but the words seemed to seep into the walls, leaving nothing behind. He wondered if Draco had walked these halls, if the place had swallowed his voice the way it was eating Ron’s. He wondered if Draco had ever really _lived_ here; it didn’t seem like the sort of place anyone could ever have lived in. It felt more like a display, like a showcase of the lives of the rich and flawless. It felt unreal.  
  
At the end of the day, Ron would clamber into his huge, sprawling bed, and pull the covers up around his ears, squeezing his eyes tightly. If he ignored the glossy feel of the sheets wrapped around him, he could pretend he was back at home, that the ceiling was just above his head, that he could go downstairs and find the place stuffed with Weasleys, arguing and laughing...that his life wasn’t a husk.   
  


OoOoOoOoO

  
  
There was no dust to be swept away. There was nothing out of place to be straightened. The windows, with all the best anti-streak and anti-smudge charms on them, never needed washing. Ron scrubbed the floors, his knees aching from crawling on them for miles and miles of hardwood, and did the dishes, but that was about it. He hardly would have expected boredom to be the chief bane of his captivity, but it was. The monotony was stifling.  
  
The house was too quiet. It was true that two of the original three people who’d lived there were dead, but even the many portraits never spoke. They merely gazed anaemically from their frames, noses slightly wrinkled, lips slightly twisted. There were no house elves. There were no ghosts, save perhaps Lucius, who was so wan and wandering that there was almost no point to him at all.   
  
He insisted Ron eat supper at the table with him, mimicking a civilised wizard, but rarely spoke to him. It was about the only time Ron saw the man. Once in a while they’d pass each other in the hall, but Ron wasn’t certain what he was supposed to say then, if anything, and Lucius never bothered to glance at him. Ron found himself on the brink of asking about Harry many times, but could never quite bring himself to do it. Did he really want to know? It wasn’t like hearing about his friend’s suffering would help anyone. Hell, Ron couldn’t even save himself.   
  
Most of the time, Ron tried to push the thought of Harry away completely. He was becoming skilled at it, except for at night when, in the darkness and oppressive silence, he fell into restless dreams. He’d reach for Hermione, aching for her, only to awake to his isolation, or he’d see Harry’s face wracked with pain as Snape hit him again and again and again, to wake gasping, sweat trickling down his back, the sheets damp and clinging, wrapped around his body like a giant snake, trying to squeeze the life out of him.   
  
He never dreamt of magic, for some reason. Magic was gone from Ron’s life.  
  
Once, roaming down a hallway, Ron caught a murmur of dialogue. He crept to the door, glancing nervously in to find the man reading half aloud, settled casually in a leather armchair. He paused, brought a white fingertip to his lips and flicked a tongue over it, then turned a page with a noise that reminded Ron of a snake shedding its skin.  
  
  
“...begat Flavius, who was your many-times Great Grandfather, Draco...” The words faded out, and Ron shivered, pressing himself against the doorframe. Was Lucius pretending to talk to his dead son? Or did he really _believe_ he was talking to Draco? “...my own favourite uncle, Aculeo, who died, alas, of being kicked by a particularly bloody-minded Aethonan, which he was flogging at the time...”  
  
Screwing up his courage, Ron stepped into the room and cleared his throat. Lucius froze. “I finished the kitchen floor,” Ron said lamely. “I don’t know what you want me to do next.” It wasn’t what Harry would have said. He would have said, ‘You’ll pay for this, you bastard,’ or he’d try to wrench the man’s wand away, or _something..._  
  
Malfoy looked up slowly, his mouth turned down in something that might have been a frown, or might have been a grimace of revulsion. “ _Find something_ to do,” he ordered in an icy voice. “And let me alone.”  
  
His eyes returned to his book, and he took a sip of his drink, setting it back on the table with a ‘plink.’   
  
“Right,” Ron muttered. “Right.” Harry would have handled it better, but Ron wasn’t Harry. Ron wasn’t even close.  
  
He hovered there for a few more minutes, but couldn’t think of anything to say, and Malfoy, for all intents and purposes, already seemed to have forgotten his existence.   
  
Finally, Ron turned and slunk out of the room, feeling unaccountably worse than he would have done had the man yelled at him for interrupting.   
  
In bed that night, Ron turned his face to his pillow and screamed.  
  


OoOoOoOoO

  
  
It was cold in the evenings. There was a fireplace in his bedroom, and after some effort at speaking with Lucius, Ron managed to get the man to light it in the evenings. That brought their total daily interactions up to two, with perhaps one sentence from each on a good day. Ron had even tried thanking the man for lighting the fire, but it had garnered no response except for a scornful flick of eyes.   
  
Ron got bored with housework, and since Malfoy didn’t seem to notice whether he cleaned or not, gave up and started reading in the Manor’s library. Most of the books weren’t terribly pleasant, but it took his mind off things. He could hear Hermione’s voice echoing in his head, urging him to find something useful. Sometimes he read for hours on end, legs curled up under him as he poured over the old words of magic, blood and history. He wondered where Harry was, if he was fighting back. He felt horribly guilty that no one was abusing _him_ in any way, that he was, for lack of a better word, _safe._  
  
Lucius came in once and stopped, staring. His eyes were like an overcast sky as he looked at Ron, the expensive, leather-bound volume, and Ron’s bare feet.   
  
Ron stood jerkily, one arm asleep from having lain on it for so long. He wasn’t prepared, but if Lucius was angry, Ron could get angry, too. He _wanted_ to get angry. He wanted the man to yell, so he could yell back. He wanted something he could fight.   
  
Malfoy lifted his lip in disdain, his perfect teeth glinting momentarily. Then he left without a word, his long hair fluttering behind him just a little.  
  
Ron blinked, trying to quell the rage bubbling up inside with nowhere to go. That night, he didn’t bother with a pillow; he lay face up, fingers clawing into his bedding, screaming and screaming until he was hoarse.  
  
Malfoy never came, and it was as though no one could hear him at all.  
  


OoOoOoOoO

  
  
He told jokes the next day at supper. He started with the clairvoyant who went into a pub with a tiny medium in her pocket. Lucius looked at him like he was mad.  
  
“Don’t you get it? Because—er—he’s tiny, but he’s also a _medium_ , and it—”  
  
“Do be quiet, you ghastly thing. Is this how your people converse during the long winter evenings?”  
  
Ron felt his insides clench in anger at the reference to his family. “At least I _have people_ ,” he retorted. “And the good thing about there being so many is that even during a war one or two are bound to make it through—unlike your pathetic, useless excuse for an offspring.”  
  
Lucius’ hand moved so quickly that Ron had no time to brace himself, and was knocked completely out of his chair. He ended up on his knees beside the dinner table, one hand pressed to his stinging face. He laughed quietly. At least he’d finally got some sort of a rise out of the man.  
  
“You’re a nasty mutation of a pureblood, do you realize that?” the man asked in a shaking voice. He left the room in a majestic swirl of robes, not looking back.  
  
Ron wiped his cheek and found, to his surprise, that a smear of blood came away on his fingers. He put his hand to his mouth, sucking it clean, tasting the dull copper.  
  
It wasn’t enough.  
  
It wasn’t nearly enough.  
  


OoOoOoOoO

  
  
Ron hovered outside the man’s bedroom door. It was snowing outside, fat flakes that melted as they met the windowpanes, but it seemed colder inside. Lucius wouldn’t come out. He wouldn’t come out, and Ron didn’t dare go in.  
  
But wasn’t that what Harry would have done? Damn the consequences, do what you must, take charge, take a risk, stride in and _make_ the man see you?   
  
But oh, Harry was away with Snape, and Ron almost envied him. How different it would be to belong to Snape, with his rage and his passion and his black _heat_. Snape would never ignore him. Not for long. Snape couldn’t do it.   
  
But Lucius could. Lucius wasn’t eating, and he wasn’t speaking, and Ron didn’t know what to do. If only it had been some sort of anger, some test of bravery, some kind of simple solution he had to find! He shouldn’t care if Lucius died. He _didn’t_ care. But without Lucius, Ron would starve, wouldn’t he? Would the cupboards go on filling themselves? Would the wards holding Ron inside fail? Somehow, Ron felt it was the Manor holding him, more than Malfoy, and he suspected that the Manor would never let him go.  
  
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He entered the room. The curtains were drawn, and there were no candles lit. Ron squinted into the shadows, slowly picking out the shape of the big four-poster, the massive hearth, the chairs…  
  
And there was Malfoy, seated in one of them, hands folded serenely in his lap. Ron could only tell the man was still _alive_ because he saw he was breathing, silvery hair draped over his chest rising and falling with each tranquil breath.  
  
 _Look at me look at me look at me **damn you**_ , Ron thought desperately, his hands curling into fists. He didn’t want to be this, anymore. Lucius may have become a ghost, but it was Ron who’d become invisible, forgotten. He couldn’t take it anymore. He needed validation, just once, somehow, that he was a real creature, blood and flesh and thought and _purpose_.   
  
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he demanded through teeth that wouldn’t come apart. His voice shook with rage. “What the hell is _wrong_ with you? You’ve _won,_ damn you, and yet—you don’t do _anything!_ You sit around and wait to _die!_ Is that it? _Answer me_ , damn you!”  
  
That hateful, _hateful_ sneer crept across those mighty features, like a king surveying a land he’d broken and conquered. But there had been no prize for Lucius.  
  
“Is it because he doesn’t need you anymore? You’re _surplus_ to _requirements?_ ” Ron taunted, pacing back and forth before the man like a caged tiger eager to turn and devour its master. “This is ridiculous. You hide away in here like some wretched old man. And you _should!_ No one cares what happens to you! I’m the only one, and that’s only because you feed me!”  
  
“You oughtn’t talk, Mr. Weasley,” Malfoy observed in a whisper. “At least I have won, unlike your own little ragtag band of nothings.”  
  
“I used to be afraid of you, when I was little,” Ron told him. “My dad told me terrible things about you.” Finally, something had caught the man’s attention, for he looked up, something like curiosity writ in his eyes. “He didn’t say _much._ He said you were evil. He said you’d do _anything_ for power. There was nothing you wouldn’t stoop to.”  
  
Lucius looked away, snowy lashes lowering in the dim light. “You’re not worth the effort,” he muttered. “You’re beneath even my contempt.”  
  
It wasn’t what Ron had wanted. He didn’t know _what_ he wanted anymore, but he couldn’t take this silence, this chill. He couldn’t stand walking about like he was living in someone else’s memory, unwanted and ignored. “The hell I am,” he croaked.  
  
Malfoy did not respond, and the silence stretched, reaching for Ron, ready to drown him, ready to sweep over him again and return them to their placid reservoir of wordless hatred.  
  
“Why don’t you DO SOMETHING?” he screamed, chest heaving. “Just get it over with! You haven’t done _anything!_ You don’t cut me, you don’t curse me, you don’t _beat_ me, you don’t sneer over me and tell me how pathetic I am, you don’t do any of the things that a _real_ Death Eater would do! You haven’t even tried to rape me! You’re _nothing_ , d’you hear me? WHY DON’T YOU _LOOK_ AT ME?”  
  
Snarling, he unwound all the fury and frustration he was feeling, and felt his fist connect with a satisfying smack of flesh on flesh. It stung, it really did, but the blood was singing in Ron’s veins, and he felt alive again. He spit at the man’s feet. “Why don’t you just _kill me_ , and _get it over with?_ ” This was _it._ This was divine. _This_ was what Harry would have done.  
  
Lucius turned slowly, wiping the blood away from his nose. His nostrils were flared, and his eyes were narrow.   
  
“Do something?” he growled, lowering his hand from his face. “What would you have me _do,_ Mr. Weasley? Has your deficient brain finally overtaxed itself? I’ve let you alone, up ‘till now, and asked nothing but that you do the same. _Do_ something?”   
  
Ron stood in the centre of the room, breathing heavily, incapable of moving. “…Something,” he echoed hoarsely.   
  
Lucius reached down beside his chair, his hair falling forward like a silky curtain. He got heavily to his feet, as though it were a struggle, and looked down his nose at Ron. Dimly, Ron was impressed. He was a tall boy, and it took no little effort to make him feel small. “Do something,” the man repeated in a frosty whisper. His arm moved in a flash—too quickly, _much_ too quickly for someone as insubstantial as Malfoy had seemed lately.   
  
Ron was on his knees again, shielding his head. The blows picked up speed in time with Malfoy’s anger, the cane roaring forward over and over, and the pain was intense. The silver snake head made an effective weapon, a heavy weight with horrible little points that caught on Ron’s skin, tearing his forearm open. His teeth chattered, but he couldn’t seem to speak. He couldn’t yell, he couldn’t demand Lucius stop. _It just wouldn’t come out._  
  
“You want me to _beat_ you, you say?” Malfoy inquired mordantly, striking Ron’s unprotected side. The cane bounced off his ribs, and he fell, reflexively curling into a ball. “You want me to _curse_ you, or merely curse _at_ you?” He strode purposefully away, and Ron allowed a strangled noise to escape his throat  
  
 _Stop. Stop! This isn’t what I want._ The words didn’t come. _But this **is** what you asked for,_ he pointed out to himself.   
  
The man returned, something steely glinting from his fingertips. Ron wanted to ask, but for the creak of his jaw, made no noise. Lucius smiled, that arrogant, blistering smile, and bent over. _And something in Ron was relieved. Vindicated._ Then the first button came off, snapping away and into the darkness, still trailing the threads that had anchored it to Ron’s shirt. Ron watched in horrified fascination as the knife flicked, and another button came off, and another.   
  
And then that smooth, alabaster hand reached out, grabbed hold of his collar, _pulled._ Ron was jerked forward, his heart suddenly slamming beneath his sore ribs as the shirt was torn off of him.   
  
“And this, too? You wanted me to cut you, or so you said. You wish to _bleed?_ Then I’ll show you the _generosity_ of a Malfoy.” The knife darted out, not cutting—oh, it _couldn’t_ be cutting, could it?—it was much too quick, too quiet, it was _caressing_ his skin, lovingly drawing blood to the surface. It stroked his cheek, the warmth welling beneath Ron’s eye.   
  
Lucius paused, and in the momentary abeyance, they could each hear the other’s breath, coming in eager, hissing gasps.   
  
Lucius leaned forward, low over Ron, his hair trailing down, tickling the bare, freckled skin. The knife moved slowly down, kissing Ron’s throat, nipping his collarbone, biting deeply into his chest. The man’s movements were effortless, sinuous, his shimmering eyes following the trail of blood that now wound its way down the boy’s body like a snake.  
  
Just under Ron’s ribs, he stopped. The knife twisted almost casually, and Ron cried out in pain. Then the pressure was gone, and Lucius sat back on his heels, wetting his lips. He leaned forward again, covering Ron’s body with his own. Ron whimpered slightly against the flair of hot pain that snaked down his front. _“Is that what you wanted?”_ Lucius demanded. His breath was a frigid puff in Ron’s ear, like the breath of a spirit.   
  
Ron found just enough of a voice. “Yes,” he said. He hated that he sounded frightened.   
  
But oh, the coolness, like fresh water on a parched throat! He wriggled a little, and when Lucius shifted, he looked down to see the snake-headed cane slithering its way along his body, slipping through his blood, and the icy metal felt lovely against his feverish skin.  
  
“More,” he mumbled.  
  
Lucius struck him with the back of his hand. “Manners, boy.”  
  
Ron shut his eyes, trying to pretend he was elsewhere, and knowing that he didn’t really want to be. “Please,” he croaked.   
  
He was turned on his stomach, the clothing ripped from his body. He didn’t help. He didn’t move at all. Because this wasn’t him, and he wasn’t giving this. It was just something being taken. He couldn’t help it.   
  
He expected Lucius to be an icy lance inside of him—but no—it _burned._ Malfoy’s cock was smooth and hot and bluntly pierced him, and Lucius didn’t pause to let Ron become accustomed, and he didn’t do anything to try to make it easier, he just wrapped well manicured hands around Ron’s skinny arms, pinning him to the floor, and _thrust._ It hurt. It didn’t hurt in a pleasant way, it just bloody _hurt._ Ron felt like he was being ripped open; it was worse than being knifed, even. Lucius only laughed at his tears. “And this is what nasty little Mudblood-loving _beasts_ deserve,” he murmured, and it echoed in Ron’s ears. He swallowed, shifting, and Lucius seemed to like that, by the growl and the way he changed positions so his hands pinched at Ron’s hips.   
  
“Hate you,” Ron said weakly, but some freakish, twisted part of him thrilled at this. _Now_ he had given as much as Harry. He _must_ have. No one could have gone through worse than this.   
  
Lucius pushed him, forced him up on his knees, one hand bringing fiery pain to his scalp, twisting in his hair as he pumped and twisted, humping into the boy. When Lucius finally let go of his hair, Ron let his head sag to his arms, sobbing. Lucius used him, rutting and stabbing into Ron’s body, until—  
  
The man held very still, his breath catching, and then slid out, his forehead cool as it rested against Ron’s back. “Because you asked for it,” he panted. “You wanted me to beat you. You wanted me to cut you. You wanted me to tell you what you _were,_ and I _did._ ”  
  
He got shakily to his feet, wand in hand, and Ron turned on his side, looking up from beneath a sweaty curtain of red hair.   
  
“You dared me to do it all. You dared me to kill you.” The wand was pointed straight at Ron now, and he could feel the speed and the green light that came to steal away life, and his fists curled in that thick, thick carpet.   
  
“Go on, then,” he said in a hushed voice, so frail it hardly made it past his lips. “Go on.” _Take it, because no one can give more than that, and when they remember me, they’ll remember what I gave, and not what you did—not what I wanted you to do—to me._  
  
Lucius lowered the wand. “It hardly matters what you say, or what context you put it in, boy. I _am_ better than you. I really am.” He staggered back to his chair and collapsed in it, his hands in his face.   
  
Ron forced his legs back into his pants, though he shivered and knew he was bleeding. He didn’t care. Malfoy had looked at him. He was real again. Whatever happened, he was real again.  
  
He sat with his fists still knotted in the rug, crying silently.   
  
He wasn’t sure, but he thought Lucius might be crying, too. He didn’t ask. You just didn’t, that’s all.  
  


OoOoOoOoO

  
  
There was smoke coming from downstairs. Smoke, and noises, fresh noises, new noises, and Ron was almost beside himself with excitement, like a puppy. “Something’s happening,” he told Malfoy, but Malfoy wouldn’t listen.  
  
There were cracks, flashes of light. Something was coming. Good or bad, Ron didn’t care anymore. Anything to end this, anything at all. He tried to pry Malfoy up from the chair, but Malfoy wouldn’t come. “Something’s _here,_ ” he hissed, perturbed. “We have to _face it._ ”  
  
Malfoy took Ron’s astonished face in his hands, held him inches away. “All I have _ever asked_ is that you _let me be,_ ” he whispered harshly. He shoved Ron, hard, and the boy nearly fell.  
  
“Well—well— _fine_ then! You idiot! I’m going to see what it is! You _bastard!_ You can stay here and _rot_ for all I care!”  
  
He stumbled down the stairs, coughing in the smoke, eyes streaming. It was bloody bedlam downstairs—everything was engulfed in flames. Had the Dark Lord got sick of Malfoy’s absences? Was this retribution?  
  
But no, there was a voice, and it was one Ron recognised, and it brought him to his knees, gulping, his throat tight.  
  
“He’s damn well here somewhere, and I’m going to find him, Snape! I won’t leave without him!”  
  
And there, framed in a smouldering doorway, hair singed and scar blazing, was the hero of the day. “Harry,” Ron choked. “ _Harry!_ ”  
  
Harry leapt, dodging burning debris, helping to hold Ron up. Ron pointed up the stairs. Harry shook his head, and Ron bit his lip. There was nothing that could be done for Lucius now. Maybe there never had been. Ron, at least, would be all right. Harry half dragged him to safety, and Ron realized with a bitter smile that Harry had saved him again. Maybe that was all right, though. It was what Harry did.   
  
“It’s all over,” Harry said. “I’m sorry it took us so long. Snape and I—we had to do this right. But I wouldn’t have left you there, really. And—and Voldemort’s dead. The war’s all but over.”  
  
Out on the lawn, they stood beside Snape, watching Malfoy Manor become an inferno. It _was_ choked with vines, just as Ron had imagined, dry, rotting vines that burned like anything. The flames sent sparks leaping into the stars, and Ron stared, tears making paths in the soot on his face.  
  
“That’s...good,” Ron replied sombrely. He just had to keep telling himself that.  
  


OoOoOoOoO

  
  
Ron is glad to have his own bed back. It smells of home, _feels_ like home. He awakes every morning to his mother’s cooking, to the company of his friends and family. As Ron had known, the Weasley house is never empty. And now Bill and Fleur are there, and soon there will be babies on the way.  
  
The Burrow is home. He hadn’t seen it the way Harry had before, but now he’s happy to be surrounded by laughter, warmth and light. It’s crowded and cluttered and worn, but this is a _home._ And he appreciates it all the more for that cold place inside him, the place that remembers Malfoy Manor, and its aching emptiness.   
  
Sometimes he thinks about Lucius Malfoy, and he can’t help but pity the man, who once glittered and shimmered and sneered, the prince of that vine-choked mansion high on a hill.


End file.
